Impression Healthcare becomes official supplier and research partner to ONE Championship
ONE Championship is the largest global sports media property in Asia’s history with a global broadcast reach of 2.6 billion potential viewers across 140+ countries.
Barely a week after Aurora announced a deal with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Australia’s very own Impression Healthcare (ASX: IHL) has made a move that emulates one of Canada’s most prominent cannabis developers.
Earlier this morning, Impression announced that it will collaborate with Group One Holdings, the owner of the ONE Championship martial arts competition – currently a major rival to the UFC and far larger when ranked by viewership.
According to the terms of the deal, Impression will market its Gameday Mouthguards across ONE’s extensive digital and physical infrastructure and will become ONE’s “concussion research partner” – impressive in light of Impression’s upcoming clinical trial to assess CBD and concussion causing traumatic brain injury (TBI).
ONE is currently attracting millions of viewers and commands some of the highest TV ratings and social media engagement metrics across Asia. According to the company, it has an average viewership of 20 million viewers per event broadcast, compared to 16 million for the NFL and 2 million for an average NBA game.
As one of the world’s largest martial arts organisations, ONE features bouts across the full spectrum of martial arts including Muay Thai, kickboxing and mixed martial arts. It’s website, where Gameday Mouthguards will have a permanent presence for the two year term of the deal, achieves 241M unique hits per month.
ONE also has a coveted client roster of blue-chip Fortune 500 sponsors and advertisers, including the likes of Disney, Marvel, LG, Sony and Facebook.
Contract specifics
Impression has agreed to pay an undisclosed royalty to Group One relating to ONE-branded Gameday Mouthguards and Gameday’s FitGuard products over a two-year term, commencing immediately.
ONE athletes will also be given the opportunity to wear Impression’s product throughout the agreement period which could potentially provide exposure to more than 550 elite athletes across the globe.
Impression Healthcare is ONE’s concussion research partner, with Impression set to commence a clinical trial to investigate the use of CBD to treat concussion and traumatic brain injury in sportspeople.
The deal is incredibly resonant for Impression given that mixed martial arts is an extremely physically demanding combat sport, while Impression is progressing products that aim to mitigate concussive and traumatic injuries to athletes.
As ONE’s concussion research partner, Impression can use the FiTGuard head impact monitoring platform to monitor and respond to concussion “in-combat” and Impression management is nearing the commencement of its CBD clinical trial to treat concussion and TBI in the current quarter.
High impact deal
Impression and ONE have confirmed that Gameday Mouthguards will receive a range of benefits including a full-page colour advertisement in the event souvenir program, commercials, branding at press conferences and other miscellaneous benefits in at least ten events every calendar year.
Impression will also have the right to select up to three ONE fighters to use in all promotional, branding and social media activity.
Furthermore, ONE has also granted Impression the right and license to use its designations, licensed marks, licensor photos and licensor footage solely in connection with promoting and advertising Gameday Mouthguards, executing promotions, and producing co-branded premium initiatives to help drive Impression’s awareness.
“We’re delighted to collaborate with ONE Championship on two fronts; to generate a sales relationship for our oral devices division and to enhance our concussion program,” said Mr Joel Latham, managing director and chief executive officer of Impression Healthcare.
“Some of the major cannabis companies including Canopy Growth Corporation and Aurora Cannabis have partnered with international sporting organisations to investigate the use of CBD products for elite athletes. Aurora has collaborated with the UFC and Canopy with the NHL Association.
“Now, on top of a great marketing opportunity for existing products, Impression is delighted to leverage our cannabinoid concussion project and our location in the Asia Pacific region, to partner with the biggest martial arts competition in the world,” said Mr Latham.